Jewish Justice League

Inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice, the Jewish Justice League of Community Synagogue of Rye will engage and represent the congregation in advocating for issues of human rights and social justice from a Reform Jewish perspective.

For more information, contact s email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Amy Kashchy atkashchyrye@aol.com.

Hear The Call, Be The Call

Act Now!

Imagine you are running for your life. Your survival depends on the mercy of strangers. Your home is in ruins and your neighbors have fled. There is no turning back. When you reach the crowded camp, you join thousands who ache for a life they will never know again. Exhausted aid workers explain that you’ll need to wait. You close your eyes and pray, day after day after day.

For millions of refugees, this is reality.

But refugees are nameless and faceless, aren’t they? Far away from our lives…

Do we turn and look the other way?

As we previously reported, Temple Sholom, a congregation in Canada, chose a different path. Hearing a call to action, this congregation decided to privately sponsor two families from Syria seeking to resettle and rebuild their lives in Canada.

Private sponsorship, a practice available in Canada’s immigration and citizenship system, allows groups of faith or five or more citizens to come together and sponsor refugees through the long immigration process and resettlement into Canada. Those who resettle ultimately have an opportunity to become Canadian citizens.

Temple Sholom, with support of the local Anglican Diocese and a Vancouver based agency called MOSIAC (Multilingual Orientation Service Association for Immigrant Communities), is helping Bawar and Shinhat (a recently married couple) and a family of four; Hasan, his wife Mafa and their children Hedar, age five and Jotres, age three. Both have some relatives in Canada.

The families are from Al-Qamishli, a predominantly Kurdish city in Northeastern Syria, now a zone of terror exploding with violence. As Kurds, these families descend from a people who faced generations of oppression. They left their homes years ago, spending time in a refugee camp in Kurdistan, a region that borders Turkey and Syria.

In most ways Bawar, Shinhat, Hasan and Mafa are just like us, wanting to better themselves and provide for their families. Newlyweds Bawar and Shinhat are university educated (Bawar works as an accountant, Shinhat studied agriculture) with hopes to someday raise children of their own in safety and peace. Hasan and Mafa are parents working to provide for their little boys, spending their days in the refugee camp. Hasan works as a physician with Doctors without Borders and Mafa teaches, able to keep little Hedar and Jotres near her side. Hedar and Jotres are too young to understand the complex world, although they are old enough to see fear in faces around them.

Temple Sholom’s commitment to sponsor these refugee families includes providing financial assistance, if needed, for a year after their arrival to Vancouver. However, sponsorship involves so much more. Temple Sholom’s congregants will be meeting them at the airport, helping them find homes, find employment, learn the language and assimilate to a new culture. Sponsorship means getting to know these refugees as people and helping them rebuild their lives, forging bonds that will last a lifetime.

We are presented with a unique opportunity we should not pass up. Let’s put ourselves out there and form those bonds as well. Whether you can lend financial support, moral support, expertise, or correspondence to Bawar, Shinhat, Hasan and Mafa and little Hedar and Jotres, all of it matters.

Stay tuned for a skype session we are looking to arrange with them so we can speak with them live! In the meantime, there are ways to help:

· If you wish to send words of kindness and encouragement to these families, send them to Karen Wallace Lipson c/o Jewish Justice League at Community Synagogue of Rye or e mail her at wallaceshaine55@aol.com. Let them know you are thinking of them.

· If you wish to donate money to help Temple Sholom sponsor these families, send a check made out to Community Synagogue of Rye with “Temple Sholom Syrian Refugees” on the memo line. US tax deductible charitable donation.

Imagine running for your life, your survival dependent on the mercy of strangers. Now imagine being the ones to say “Here I am!” (hineni shalacheni), knowing your kindness will make a difference.

Here the Call. Be the Call.

Advocacy Actions for Summer 2015

As the Jewish Justice League, our mission is to advocate for social justice, leveraging the collective voice of congregation members. With an underpinning of Jewish values, we selected three focus areas: Women, Children and LBGT Oppression; Poverty/Hunger; and Gun Violence.

We know not everyone holds the same ideology or agrees on the best solutions. However, for those of you out there who believe that more can be done locally, nationally or across the globe, there are ways to have our voices heard!

Our goal is simple: to get 100 congregants to take at least one action this year.

Whether you write to a legislator, raise awareness on social media or participate in a group event, you have taken action! We’ll keep you posted on opportunities to learn, take action and become involved. What’s more, when you take an action, let us know! Send us a note to wallaceshaine55@aol.com saying “I took action!”

For further information:

Taking the SNAP Challenge: Sharing Our Experiences

Every day, over 49 million Americans do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life, including more than 15 million children and nearly 5 million seniors.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provided by the government to help those in need of obtaining food, is inadequate for so many. Gain a glimpse of the struggle millions face every day by reading about and watching our experiences from the 7-day challenge period on the CSR Blog. We hope this will encourage you to take the first step with us to advocate for change.